Christian Coalition Mailing Prompts Apology to Blacks

In a move that has been criticized as lacking racial sensitivity, the Christian Coalition has distributed a sample of an election pamphlet with photographs depicting a fictitious white candidate espousing views favored by the conservative religious organization and another fictional candidate, who is black, opposing them.

Christian Coalition officials, who, in recent months, have sought to improve relations with blacks, said they were embarrassed and chagrined by the sample pamphlets and said they had stopped sending them out last week.

Ralph Reed, the group's executive director, said that he had faxed a letter of apology to the head of the branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Texas, where the sample had been widely distributed.

He added that he had tried, so far without success, to call civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mfume, the national leader of the N.A.A.C.P., to express his regret over the incident.

The pamphlet is a sample of the evangelical group's 1996 voter guide for state and Congressional elections. On the cover is a picture of ''John Doe.'' Under his photograph are positions he champions: support for a balanced budget amendment, backing of vouchers to allow parents to send children to private and religious schools, support for school prayer and opposition to ''homosexual adoption of children.''

All the positions taken by John Doe are in line with those advocated by the Christian Coalition.

Across the page from Mr. Doe is a picture of a black candidate, ''Joe Sample.'' He supports ''abortion on demand,'' opposes term limits for Congress, supports ''taxpayer funding of obscene art'' and opposes every position the coalition favors.

''I think it's outrageous,'' said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a coalition of liberal organizations that lobbies on economic and equality issues. ''It obviously is intended to send a not-so-subtle message about the coalition's attitude towards black candidates, which I think is troubling.''

In a telephone interview, Mr. Reed said that the sample was prepared by a private company and that its distribution had been approved by a low-level employee who had seen only a poor quality fax that was so dark that the race of the candidates could not easily be discerned. He said that none of his group's top officials had seen the pamphlet before it was distributed.

''It was a mistake made by an outside vendor and not by any member of the Christian Coalition staff,'' Mr. Reed said. ''It was wrong. It should not have happened. I was personally offended by the characterization of an African-American candidate in this way. As someone who grew up in the South, I am extremely sensitive to the use of race in this manner. I have zero tolerance for political race-baiting of any kind, no matter how subtle.''

The voter guide sample was part of a packet that included a cover letter, an order form so churches could order the guide in bulk and a memorandum from a Washington lawyer assuring ministers that distribution of the pamphlet would not violate Internal Revenue Service regulations.

The letter said the voter guides had been ''thoroughly reviewed'' to insure they did not violate I.R.S. regulations. The Christian Coalition is being sued by the Federal Election Commission, which has accused the coalition of promoting Republican candidates, including former President George Bush, Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina through the use of its voter guides. As a nonpartisan organization that asserts that its political activity is educational, the Christian group is prohibited from endorsing or working for specific candidates.

The controversy over the sample election guides comes at a time when the Christian Coalition, which was founded by Pat Robertson, the television evangelist, has been trying to reach out to politically conservative blacks.

After a spate of arsons at small black churches in the South, the group raised about $600,000 to help rebuild some of them. At the time, Mr. Reed said he was sorry that too many white evangelicals were on the ''sidelines'' or ''on the wrong side'' in the desegregation struggles of the 1950's and 1960's.

Mr. Reed said that his group intended to send out about 500,000 voters guides -- thought none with the offending pictures of ficticious black and white candidates -- to black churches out of a total of 45 million pamhlets that will be sent out before the Nov. 5 election.

Several civil rights leaders said today that the sample voter guide had raised suspicions about Mr. Reed's apology.

''It really calls into question the credibility of the overtures that the Christian Coalition made to the black community after the church burnings,'' said Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League. ''I recall people being skeptical of those overtures and how genuine they were. An incident like this affirms that skepticism.''

The pamphlet reminded some political scientists of past campaign advertisements that used racial imagery like the George Bush commercial that featured Willie Horton, a black convict who raped a white woman while free on a prison furlough program, and the 1990 commercial for Senator Helms that showed white hands crumpling a job rejection notice while a narrator spoke of the position going to a woman or a minority.

It is unclear how widely the sample voter guide was distributed. People for the American Way, a liberal organizations that often monitors the activities of the Christian right, said it had received calls from affiliates in Texas and Pennsylvania who has seen copies of the guide.